SYNC2KILL

SYNC2KILL is a speculative browser-based artwork disguised as a defence-tech startup. The fictional platform proposes a disturbing service: synchronizing the movements of video-game players with real drones or humanoid machines. A player continues playing an ordinary game while the interface claims that their avatar may be controlling a real-world military operation somewhere else. The work borrows the visual language of startup culture, gaming platforms, military technology and recruitment propaganda. Its polished interface presents violence through familiar product-design conventions: onboarding, SDK integration, performance metrics, beta access and promotional messaging. The central fiction is intentionally simple: What if playing a game could become participation in a real conflict without the player ever knowing? SYNC2KILL explores the increasing distance between action and consequence in networked systems. Contemporary technologies already distribute agency across interfaces, algorithms, platforms, operators and automated machines. The work exaggerates this logic until the boundary between entertainment and warfare becomes impossible to locate. The player is placed in an uncomfortable position. They may believe they are controlling a fictional character, while the system claims that the same actions are being translated into events elsewhere. Responsibility becomes fragmented: is it located with the player, the platform, the algorithm, the developer, or the institution operating the machine? The project also examines the aesthetics of technological legitimacy. Dangerous systems do not necessarily look dangerous. They may arrive as clean interfaces, APIs, dashboards, developer tools and optimistic startup language. Alongside the interactive web project, SYNC2KILL includes a series of propaganda-style WARPOSTERS that extend the fictional company into a broader visual identity. The work deliberately occupies an ambiguous space between product demonstration, satire, speculative design and internet art. The system presented by SYNC2KILL is fictional; its purpose is to examine how easily familiar interfaces can conceal infrastructures and consequences that remain invisible to the user. Medium: browser-based speculative artwork, interactive web project, video and digital poster series Year: 2025 Artist: Jānis Kauss / Absurd.website Live work: https://absurd.website/sync2kill/ Man šeit kodols būtu tieši šis: Dangerous systems do not necessarily look dangerous. Tas labi savieno visu projektu — gaming, startup aesthetics, military infrastructure un lietotāja nezināšanu — vienā ļoti nolasāmā idejā.